Interdimensional Games Inc.

Consortium: The Tower Early Access ALPHA 1.5 is live. Lots of bug fixes and general gameplay and content improvements and polish. Estimated amount of gameplay for Act 1 is 15-20 hours viewforum.php?f=157

[Update] Introducing a completely re-envisioned Agitation and Stealth meter. Now the two are clearly separated which should help make the meters more intuitive. In addition, the Agitation meter is now stylistically in tune with the rest of the Consortium HUD.

UPDATES

[Update] More performance improves for Lobby, but MUCH more to come
[Update] Squad Member end of battle lines will now play whenever the player kills / incapacitates everyone in a level.
[Update] Killing or incapping a squad in a level now comes with Public Opinion boosts, and penalties. See yourself getting low? Find another level and take them all out peacefully to get yourself back on track.
[Update] Walking near the artifact will now screw up time dilation. This gets even more intense as you get closer to it.
[Update] Fixes and improvements for AI on AI battles
[Update] Improvements to damage perception by AIs
[Update] The Rooftop SOS notification will no longer trigger until no ISSs are active.
[Update] Lessened the priority of the Conciliator Bishop Style. Now "Killer", "Neutralizer", and "Covert" all take priority over it.
[Update] Freefall suit broken repairing util rates and time lowered considerably. Still more expensive to repair than the BUS.

FIXES

[Fix] A ton of general geometry, streaming door, fan and logic fixes to WaterHub1
[Fix] Fixed a longstanding and major bug with Water where having water spawn in (usually from a level load) would not properly increase the number of Water volumes the player occupied. As a result the player would seem to randomly, and suddenly stand up in the middle of water and not be able to go through fans, they would suddenly freefall very slowly in the water, suddenly be walking underwater, or they would be able to ledge-grab underwater.
[Fix] Added a modification to the Water Blueprint to help remove a bug where you player would sometimes be able to still hear underwater audio and the underwater sound mix, despite having left the water.
[Fix] Fixed a simple but annoying bug where, on load, the player could never trigger completing the sRepairEquipment mission, despite meeting the requirements.
[Fix] Diversion power switches now save and load properly. Previously, they would function, but would appear as non-animating ON/OFF switches.
[Fix] Corrected the World Context names for the Cabinet Door recycleables.
[Fix] Some placement fixes for recycleables in Hotel Lower.
[Fix] Killing an enemy will now properly reset the player's shock combo.
[Fix] Fixed a bug where R25 and K15 would get pissed at you if one soldier killed another with an Assault Blaster.
[Fix] Fixed a logic oversight with Elon where he would start the conversation with his wife (and in turn, the whole conversation), if the player had the inital conversation with him outside the normal trigger for the phone call.
[Fix] TTCore platform collision fix
[Fix] Geometric fixes in Lobby - all “phantom geometry” *should* all be gone now - please report if you find some (with a screenshot ideally!)
[Fix] If a soldier is killed from a source that was not the player it will no longer mess up the player’s states of how many soldiers were killed vs incapped.
[Fix] Geometric fixes in the Hotel Park.
[Fix] Modified player's downing logic to accommodate the updates to water. The player can now drown again. Also fixes energy costs of generating oxygen.
[Fix] Nanite Fragment Recycleables are now called on to spawn during Begin Play instead of construct (which wouldn't execute for whatever reason). This should fix problems with Nanite Fragments after the first one you interact with, and should let subsequent Fragments save/load properly.
[Fix] Modified Nanite Recycleable logic so that the effect is less likely to just instantly disappear.
[Fix] Fixes for AI properly firing KAR grenades
[Fix] Fixed a bug where the Icer scene would trigger a Soldier if the player had 100% stealthily taken down everyone in TopExt. Check now correctly sees, not if Squad C was hostile, but if there are any remaining soldiers in TopExt.
[Fix] Fixed a longstanding bug where K15 would hassle you to talk to her about meeting the Voice, even after you had talked to her.
[Fix] Some tweaks to the current release “ending” elevator shafts. Notably fixess to end of the ending tunnels, which are now easier to reach.
[Fix] Removed erroneous upgrade content from the mysterious traitor device.
[Fix] Moved some crouch volumes in the Hotel Tower 3, so that the player is no longer forced to crouch until Tower 3 unloads when entering the Water Hub.

Needs confirmation but I have a suspicion that repairing the BUS + CEAR simultaneously in the PCU resulted in the BUS no longer repairing when the CEAR finished.

Got stuck further down the VXY Antenna tower between a platform and a beam. Can only escape by flying straight up:https://youtu.be/wWQvFREdMRQ

Suggestion: Audio falloff (with distance) works for footsteps but doesn't work with bots talking. The talking can be very misleading in terms of how far away they are. The further away the bot is from the player, the lower the volume should be. If you want to get super duper fancy (and I don't know if Unreal Engine even supports this) but adding environmental audio processing would be amazing (e.g. muffled through walls, only clear if in direct ear shot). TL;DR: I was at top of stairs where the flying saucer is, heard a guy talking, though he was far away, rounded the corner to see down the stairs, and there he was...he caught me.

The Hotel Rooms<->Roof yellow transponder elevator can be flown out of in both directions (30 seconds in on this video):https://youtu.be/T_uMgoSHQT4
Instantly in this video:https://youtu.be/i0ZrUCk0wDQ
Simpliest solution is most likely to slow it down. This is a super fast elevator...they should move at a constant maximum velocity.

Was doing a diplomacy run and things mostly went well until after the Voice...

There's 11 conversations in the manager. Can't scroll...

► Show Spoiler

Edit: Normally, the Voice call automatically starts the moment you open the conversation manager after she says "we need to talk about what just happened." This wasn't the case with 11 conversations in the manager above. You should be able to see this in the video below...

Queen - "Strommon Connection" didn't clear after doing it.

Remember talking about how the voice did like 400,000 damage? The restaurant's chairs were thrown about (first time I noticed this) like it would have hurt if I was caught by them. Video below starts with this...

Game crashed shortly after the "Ice Cave." I suspect ISS/Conversation Manager may be responsible. Video below ends with this...

Note: I recorded a lot of this stuff but it's generally in very lengthy recordings so I would have to edit it to extract the important parts for upload. If you need footage on these points, let me know.

Trying to move from Hotel Restaurant (Voice encounter) back to Roof without using elevators is problematical due to energy considerations. Because of how important the Engineering System is and the fact meeting the Voice is the only way to survive XO-1, I'd strongly recommend putting a duct option to expedite getting back to the roof.

No command for unlimited ammo? Even if it just gives you 100 of the best ammo for the selected weapon, I would be happy. Reason why I asked: I only engaged on the roof which includes all 35 of squad C (recycled all their cheap ammo) + 34 surrogates. I ran out of KAR AP ammo when engaging turrets between towers 1 and 3 in the ducts. I ended up using Cheat Engine to turn my 14 bullets into 255. And by the way, I think a save broke the game in that same area. Load it up and try to get out of there. Back is cut off by the bendy duck. Forward is cut off by the switches not working.

First conversation with Voice, Voice asks if you've met Franky McFranky. If you say yes, he calls your bluff. Does he not know that you might have seen it in a previous play through and using that knowledge to apply here? Additionally, he says he can't reveal stuff to you for fear that you'll load a previous save and use it against him. Does he not realize that this is always the case regardless if we side with him or not? Or is he saying these things because he has no way to verify who, exactly, he is speaking with?

Career Record isn't updating the Kills. Always says 0 when should say 35.

The Voice "Dr David Schelter" is repeatable.

When I went to SOS with the Voice as my handler, the guard spawned, he was hostile, and was damaging my shields. I had to leave the Icer (because friendly lock) to kill the guard which ruined the Icer event. I disconnected, loaded, and instead of an empty map, there were 34 surrogates. The ones that were close to where I loaded were not accessible. I could later retrieve the shields off of them. By the time I cleared the roof again and tried to do the SOS, the "talk anywhere" option isn't there despite the light flashing and having a waypoint to go there.

There's a lot of issues with the Voice in regards to the VXY Antenna. First, the conversation is prefaced with "R9" instead of "Voice" in the Conversation Manager. Second, the dialogs don't really make sense for the prompts (e.g. he's all "it can't be VXY" then he's all "go find the source" and I'm all "why when you just told me it's not much of a threat?"). Third, the "What if it wasn't the 'terrorists' who installed it?" has no dialog tied to it.

► Show Spoiler

My shields literally recharged as fast as the surrogates could shoot with their basic CEAR attack. The laser though, that was effective.

Newswire could use some tweaking on the Voice side. Specifically, the reference Bishop Six going inside after causing a massacre on the roof. That's not true. Should just omit that detail...probably on both sides (Consortium and Voice). Further, Newswire doesn't comment on all the surrogates showing up and being subseqently being destroyed by Bishop 6. The news drones on the roof should be able to see that, and maybe the public opinion should react to it.

Queen talks about VXY on Newswire when she has no access to that information. The Voice was my handler when I investigated the VXY antenna.

I went into the pipes and got sick of getting killed by fans and getting disoriented. Gave up.

Two major suggestions:
1) Chaos Control: Is there any technical reason why there needs to be a freefall suit and a battle-utility suit? Why not add the flight stuff to the BUS and call it a day? In lore, you can explain merging the two as a function of the IDGI repair bit. Why I bring this up is because it's adding complexity to the game for no real benefit. Creating the benefits translates to greater differentiation between the two which translates to more bugs (e.g. behavior in water, saving yourself from falling off tower, trying to escape from a fight rather than take it, the ackward item switching mechanic, etc.). You can accomplish the differentiation via the engineering system.

2) Make Bishop 6 leave a trail on the automap: this would help immensely with helping to make sure you don't backtrack in the various mazes (especially pipes and ducts).

A flying tablet (after recycling table) from the same save point as the attached save:

► Show Spoiler

The pipe that forces you up/down doesn't show on the automap here (I'm at the bottom):

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This dialog and the one after it doesn't have robo voice:

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Just providing this for you to check alignments on. This is post XO-1. I noticed only R25, K15, R3, and Queen really react to that. Makes sense, just wanted to verify:

► Show Spoiler

Edit: Alignment of 0 displays as - and gets sorted incorrectly.

Last edited by FordGT90Concept on Sun Oct 22, 2017 12:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.

A few small things I've noticed when I've been XO'd and have sided with The Voice,
- I go and speak with Odin, if I kill/attack him mid-convo I lose alignment with K15?
- If I kill Odin my public opinion goes down to -10%? Not sure if it's meant to go below 0.
- Had some issues as with Ford with the Rooftop SOS, somehow by chance I manged to get it to work. Franky will give me his dialogue and when he's done the other Franks will attack me but Frank will re-do the exact same dialogue whilst the others are still attacking me. After I've killed all the Franks the lady (gah can't remember the name) just stands there, is she supposed to say something?

I've been having fun running around with The Voice and made me wonder if you'd ever thought of Double Agent/Undercover idea for the game where we're still working with the Consortium but pretend to "leave" them to get in good/join up with The Voice.

RE: Harlock...
-the screen pre game says it's december 22nd not 21st
-Artifacts worked fine going from roof > elevator but elevator > roof was a no go
-Fans in the water tunnels are way too strong, unless I'm missing something. it's way too easy to get completely stuck if one catches you. some are fine and you can swim out of

[Fix] Fixed a rather significant logic oversight, that compared squads instead of levels for determining when the player had eliminated everyone in an area. This led to a counting error, which in turn, led to areas registering all soldiers as killed after the first kill - etc.
[Fix] Fixed an unfortunate bug where the 6 and 7 hotkeys would no longer function.
[Fix] On loading a saved game, dead/incapped/unconscious soldiers should no longer be initially standing up when approaching them.

Confirmed this. It's literally the first line while loading into a new game: "The date is December 22nd, 2042. YOU are Consortium officer Bishop Six, a global peacekeeper in a world recently revived from a major time of war."